The Commission was organized at Washington on the 26th of September, 1871, and made its final award at Newport, Rhode Island, on the 25th of September, 1873. The claims presented by American citizens before the Commission were only nineteen in number, amounting in the aggregate to a little less than a million of dollars. These claims were all rejected by the Commission—no responsibility of the British Government having been established. The subjects of her Majesty presented 478 claims which, with interest reckoned by the rule allowed by the Commission, amounted to $96,000,000. Of this number 181 awards were made in favor of the claimants, amounting in the aggregate to $1,929,819, or only two per cent of the amount claimed. The amount awarded was appropriated by Congress and paid by the United States to the British Government. All claims accruing between 1861 and 1865 for injuries resulting in any way from the war were thereafter barred.(7)
The subject of the north-western boundary line, commonly known as the San Juan question, was one of very considerable importance, over which there had been long contention between the two Governments. The treaty of Independence in 1783 was followed by a series of disputes relating to the boundary between the United States and British America. It was inevitable that a tortuous line, drawn from the north-western angle of Nova Scotia to the Lake of the Woods and thence (as the treaty erroneously described it) due west to the Mississippi River, would give occasion for honest difference of opinion and very frequent opportunity for technical disputes. The face of the country was imperfectly known in 1783, and the highlands and water-courses by which the line was to be determined could not at that time be laid down with accuracy.
Beyond the Mississippi (then an unknown country) territorial disputes grew up between Spain and Great Britain. By the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, and by the subsequently acquired claim to the Oregon country, the sovereignty of the Republic was extended to the Pacific; Great Britain claiming to be co-terminous for the entire distance. By the treaty of 1818 the forty-ninth parallel was agreed upon as the boundary from the line of the Lake of the Woods to the "Stony Mountains." The boundary from the Stony Mountains to the Pacific was left for subsequent settlement, and was finally adjusted (as already narrated in these pages) by the treaty of 1846. By that treaty the two governments agreed to continue the forty-ninth parallel as the boundary from the Stony Mountains "westward to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly through the middle of said channel and of Fuca Straits to the Pacific Ocean."
The Commissioners appointed by the two Governments to run the line could not come to an agreement upon it,—the British Government claiming that it should be run through the Rosario Straits, and the Government of the United States that it should be run through the Canal de Haro. If the line should be run by the Rosario Straits the Island of San Juan belonged to Great Britain; if by the Canal de Haro the island belonged to the United States and formed part of Washington Territory. It was now agreed in the Treaty of Washington that the question should be left to the Emperor of Germany, who was "authorized to decide finally and without appeal which of these claims is most in accordance with the true interpretation of the treaty of June 15, 1846." The question thus submitted to his Imperial Majesty was purely a geographical one. Its decision either way could scarcely wound the susceptibilities of either party, however it might affect National interests. It also relieved the august arbitrator from the consideration of all the political prejudices and pretensions which had marked the long line of boundary discussions between the two countries, and the jealousies and misunderstandings between the two countries, and the jealousies and misunderstandings which had proved so troublesome during the period of joint occupation of the Oregon territory. The Emperor referred the detailed examination of the subject to a Commission of eminent experts both in law and science, and in accordance with their report decided in favor of the claim of the United States that the line should be run through the Canal de Haro.
The Government of the United States was fortunate in having its rights and interests represented before the Umpire by its Minister at Berlin, the Honorable George Bancroft. He was a member of President Polk's Cabinet during the period of the discussion and completion of the treaty of 1846, and was Minister at London when the San Juan dispute began. With his prolonged experience in historical investigation, Mr. Bancroft had readily mastered every detail of the question, and was thus enabled to present it in the strongest and most favorable light. His success fitly crowned an official career of great usefulness and honor. His memorial to the Emperor of Germany, when he presented the case, was conceived in his happiest style. The opening words were felicitous and touching: "The treaty of which the interpretation is referred to Your Majesty's arbitrament was ratified more than a quarter of a century ago. Of the sixteen members of the British Cabinet which framed and presented it for the acceptance of the United States, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, and all the rest but one, are no more. The British Minister at Washington who signed it is dead. Of American statesmen concerned in it, the Minister at London, the President and Vice-President, the Secretary of State, and every one of the President's constitutional advisers, except one, have passed away. I alone remain, and after finishing the threescore years and ten that are the days of our years, am selected by my country to uphold its rights."
The decision of the Emperor was given on the 21st of October (1872). The British Government accepted it cordially and Lord Granville immediately instructed Sir Edward Thornton to propose that the two Governments should resume the work of the boundary commission, which was interrupted in 1859. In accordance with this proposition a chart was immediately prepared and approved by both parties to the treaty. It is unnecessary to point out the advantage to the United States of the decision. A glance at the map will show it in full detail. The conclusion of the negotiation enabled President Grant to say in his message to Congress, December, 1872,—ninety years after the close of the Revolutionary War,—"It leaves us for the first time in the history of the United States as a nation, without a question of disputed boundary between our territory and the possessions of Great Britain on the American continent."
His Majesty's Government had needlessly lost six years in coming to a settlement which was entirely satisfactory to the Government and people of the United States. Indeed a settlement at the close of the war could have been made with even less concession on the part of Great Britain, and perhaps if it had been longer postponed the demands of the Government of the United States might have increased. Wars have grown out of less aggravation and dispute between nations; but the Government of the United States had never anticipated such a result as possible, and felt assured that in the end Great Britain would not refuse to make the reparation honorably due.
The Arbitrators met in the ensuing December at Geneva, Switzerland, and after a hearing of nine months agreed upon an award, made public on the 14th of September, 1872. The judgment was that "the sum of $15,500,000 in gold be paid by Great Britain to the United States for the satisfaction of all the claims referred to the consideration of the tribunal." Sir Alexander Cockburn, the British Commissioner, dissented in a somewhat ungracious manner from the judgment of his associates; but as the majority had been specially empowered to make an award, the refusal of England's representative to join in it did not in the least degree affect its validity.(8)
[NOTE.—The question of the fisheries—the last for whose adjudication the Treaty of Washington provided—is referred to in a subsequent chapter.]
[(1) The following extracts are from Hansard's Parliamentary Debates:—
May 16th, 1861. Earl Derby, in discussing our blockade of the Southern coast, said: "A blockade extending over a space to which it is physically impossible that an effectual blockade can be applied will not be recognized as valid by the British Government." And he intimated that "it is essentially necessary that the Northern States should not be induced to rely uponour forbearance."
—Feb. 10, 1862. Earl Derby discussed the right of Mr. Lincoln to suspend the writ ofhabeas corpus, and even when Congress had passed a resolution affirming the course taken by the President, the noble Earl declared that "No law can be shown to support the President's exercise of the power."
—May 28, 1861. Mr. Bernal Osborne, in discussing the civil war in the United States, said: "If this were the proper time, I could point to outrages committed by the militia of New York in one of the Southern States occupied by them, where the General commanding, on the pretext that one of his men had been poisoned by strychnine, issued an order of the day, threatening to put a slave into every man's house to incite the slaves to murder their masters. Such was the general order issued by General Butler."
—Feb. 17, 1862. Lord Palmerston discussed the Constitutional powers of the Government, and said he knew that Mr. Seward and Mr. Lincoln could not make war upon their own authority. "We know that very well.It requires the sanction of the Senate."
—March 7, 1862. Mr. Gregory, in discussing the blockade of the Southern ports, said: "Now I can assure my honorable friend that, so far as I was concerned, I should have made use of no irritating expression. I should have affirmed then, as, undeterred by what has occurred since then, I affirm now, that secession was a right, that separation is a fact, and that reconstruction is an impossibility." Mr. Gregory denounced Mr. Seward as "lax, unscrupulous, and lawless of the rights of others."
—March 7, 1862. General Butler's orders were discussed by the Earl of Carnarvon, in the Lords, and by Sir John Walsh and Mr. Gregory in the Commons. Lord Palmerston was pleased to tell them that "with regard to the course which Her Majesty's Government may, upon consideration, take on the subject, the House I trust will allow me to say that that will be matter of reflection."
—March 7, 1862. Mr. G. W. P. Bentinck made a very bitter and abusive speech of the United States, and invited Her Majesty's Government to offer some explanation why, according to the policy which they had pursued with respect to Italian affairs, they had abstained from recognizing the independence of the Confederacy. He sneeringly referred to the "endless corruption in every public department in the Northern States."
—April 23, 1863. Mr. G. W. P. Bentinck transcended every limit of courtesy when in referring to Mr. Adams he said: "The idea of the American Minister of honesty and neutrality is remarkable. Every thing is honest to suit his own purposes."
—March 7, 1862. Lord Robert Cecil, in discussing the blockade of the Southern coast, said: "The plain matter of fact is, as every one who watches the current of history must know, that the Northern States of America never can be our sure friends, for this simple reason—not merely because the newspapers write at each other, or that there are prejudices on both sides, but because we are rivals, rivals politically, rivals commercially. We aspire to the same position. We both aspire to the government of the seas. We are both manufacturing people, and in every port, as well as at every court, we are rivals to each other. . . . With respect to the Southern States, the case is entirely reversed. The population are an agricultural people. They furnish the raw material of our industry, and they consume the produce which we manufacture from it. With them, therefore, every interest must lead us to cultivate friendly relations, and we have seen that when the war began they at once recurred to England as their natural ally."
—July 18, 1862. Mr. Lindsay, in discussing the questions of the civil war, said: "The re-establishment of the Union is indeed hopeless. That being so,—if we come to that conclusion,—it behooves England, in concert, I hope, with the great Powers of Europe, to offer her meditation, and to ask these States to consider the great distress among the people of this country caused entirely by this unhappy civil war which is now raging."
—Aug. 4, 1862. Lord Campbell (discussing the civil war) said: "But if the present moment is abandoned what are we to wait for? Not for Northern victories. Such victories would clearly limit our capacity to acknowledge Southern independence, as it was limited from the defeat and death of Zollicoffer in the winter down to the events which have lately driven General McClellan to the river.We are to wait, therefore, for new misfortunes to the Government of Washington before we grant to this unhappy strife the possibility of closing."
—March 23, 1863. Lord Campbell said: "Swelling with omnipotence, Mr. Lincoln and his colleagues dictate insurrection to the slaves of Alabama." And he spoke of the administration as "ready to let loose four million negroes on their compulsory owners and to renew from sea to sea the horrors and crimes of San Domingo."—He argued earnestly in favor of the British Government joining the government of France in acknowledging Southern independence. He boasted that within the last few days a Southern loan of £3,000,000 sterling had been offered in London, and that £9,000,000 were subscribed. He said: "Southern recognition will take away from the Northern mind the hope which lingers yet of Southern subjugation. From the Government of Washington it will take away the power of describing eleven communities contending for their liberty as rebels. . . . Victorious already, animated then, the Southern armies would be doubly irresistible. They would not have, if they retain it now, the power to be vanquished."
—Feb. 5, 1863. Earl Malmesbury spoke disdainfully of treating with so extraordinary a body as the Government of the United States, and referred to the horrors of the war,—"horrors unparalleled even in the wars of barbarous nations."
—March 27, 1863. Mr. Laird of Birkenhead (the builder of theAlabamaand the rebel rams) was loudly cheered when he declared that "the institutions of the United States are of no value whatever, and have reduced the very name of liberty to an utter absurdity."
—April 23, 1863. Mr. Roebuck declared "that the whole conduct of the people of the North is such as proves them not only unfit for the government of themselves, but unfit for the courtesies and the community of the civilized world." Referring to some case of an English ship that had been seized by an American man-of-war, he declared: "It may lead to war; and I, speaking here for the English people, am prepared for war. I know that language will strike the heart of the peace party in this country, but it will also strike the heart of the insolent people who govern America."
—Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister, simply replied, without other comment, that the question to which Mr. Roebuck referred "is of the greatest possible importance."
—June 30, 1863. Mr. Roebuck asserted that "the South will never come into the Union, and what is more, I hope it never may. I will tell you why I say so. America while she was united ran a race of prosperity unparalleled in the world. Eighty years made the Republic such a power, that if she had continued as she was a few years longer she would have been the great bully of the world. . . . As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can to prevent the reconstruction of the Union. . . . I say then that the Southern States have indicated their right to recognition; they hold out to us advantages such as the world has never seen before. I hold that it will be of the greatest importance that the reconstruction of the Union should not take place."
—April 24, 1863. Mr. Horsman of Stroud said: "We have seen the leviathan power of the North broken and driven back, with nothing to show for two years of unparalleled preparation and vast human sacrifice but failure and humiliation; the conquest of the South more hopeless and unachievable than ever, and Washington at this moment in greater jeopardy than Richmond. . . . I am not surprised that we should hear the questions asked now, 'How long are these afflictions to be endured? How long are the cotton ports of the South to remain sealed to Europe? How long are France and England to be debarred from intercourse with friendly States that owe no more allegiance to the North than they owe to the Pope? And how long are our patient but suffering operatives to remain the victims of an extinct authority and an aggressive and a malevolent Legislature?'"
—June 15, 1863. The Marquis of Clanricarde objected to our blockade, and said it was kept up "although every man of common sense in the United States is now convinced that it is impossible to compel the Southern States to re-enter the Union. . . . It is the duty of the British Government not to allow these infractions of maritime law to continue, which are in effect setting aside all law and practice as hitherto maintained."
—June 26, 1863. The Marquis of Clanricarde thought that "proceedings of American prize courts should be closely watched, for if doctrines are admitted there contrary to those maintained in the highest courts of this country, great confusion will be the result hereafter."
—June 29, 1863. Mr. Peacocke, complaining of some decisions made in the prize courts of the United States, said: "It is therefore the duty of the House to see how the law is administered in those courts." He confessed that he greatly distrusted these prize courts as they were at the time constituted.
—June 30, 1863. Mr. Clifford spoke of the "wanton barbarity with which the Federal Government has allowed its officers to wage the war, as though they sought to emulate the ravages of Attila and Genghis-Khan. . . And these things were done not for military objects which would afford some excuse for them, but out of such sheer wanton malice that even the negroes looked on disgusted and aghast."
—Feb. 9, 1864. Mr. Haliburton said: "The Canadians feel that theAmericans are a lawless people, who are bound by no ties, who disregardInternational Law, who resort to violence and force."
—March 4, 1864. Lord Robert Montagu tauntingly remarked that it seemed to him "that it is the Federals who are bound to stop the depredations of theAlabama. Why have they not a ship quick enough to catch her and strong enough to destroy her?"
—March 14, 1864. Sir James Fergusson declared that "wholesale peculations and robbery have been perpetrated under the form of war by the Generals of the Federal States, and worse horrors than, I believe, have ever in the present century disgraced European armies, have been perpetrated under the eyes of the Federal Government and yet remain unpunished. These things are notorious as the proceedings of a Government which seems anxious to rival one despotic and irresponsible power of Europe in its contempt for the public opinion of mankind."
—March 18, 1864. The Earl of Donoughmore, referring to a statement in regard to the enlistments made by Captain Winslow of the United States shipKearsarge, said that "either he stated what was a transparent falsehood or else he was not fit for his post." He then added: "The fact, however, is that any transparent falsehood seems to be a sufficient excuse for a particular line of conduct when it comes from the Federal Government."
—May 19, 1864. Mr. Alderman Rose declared "the whole system of Government in the Northern States is false, rotten, and corrupt; while the South is making for herself a great name and a glorious history."
—June 9, 1864. Lord Brougham said that he believed there was "but one universal feeling not only in this country, but all over Europe, of reprobation of the continuance of this war, of deep lamentation for its existence, and of an anxious desire that it should at length be made to cease." He lived in hopes "that before long an occasion might arise when in conjunction with our ally on the other side of the channel we shall interfere with effect, and when an endeavor to accommodate matters and restore peace between the two great contending parties will be attended with success."
—Lord John Russell agreed with Lord Brougham that "it is a most horrible war in America. There seems to be such hatred and animosity between great hosts of men, who were lately united under one government, that no consideration seems powerful enough to induce them to put an end to their fratricidal strife; and it is difficult to deal with them on those ordinary principles which have hitherto governed the conduct of civilized mankind."]
[(2) The subscribers to the Confederate loan in England were very numerous. The following were among the most conspicuous, as given in an official list.
Right Hon. Lord Wharncliffe; Marquis of Bath; Marquis of Lothian;Admiral, Right Hon. Lord Fitzardinge; Right Hon. Lord Claud Hamilton,M. P.; Right Hon. Viscount Lefford; Right Hon. Lord Teynham; ViscountGoimanson; Lord Robert Cecil, M. P.; Lord Henry F. Thynne, M. P.; SirJohn W. H. Anson; Sir Gerald George Aylmer; Sir George H. Beaumont;Sir Samuel Bignold; Sir W. H. Capell Brook; Sir C. W. C. de Crispigny;Sir T. B. Dancer; Sir Arthur H. Elton; Sir W. H. Fielden; Sir W.Fitzherbert; Rev. Sir C. H. Foster; General Sir J. W. Guise; Sir RobertHarty; Sir William Hartopp; Sir Henry A. Hoare; Sir Henry de Hoghton;Vice-Admiral Hon. Sir Henry Keppel; Sir Edward Kerrison, M. P.; SirJohn Dick Lander, M. P.; Sir E. A. H. Lechmere; Sir Coleman M. O.Loghlin, M. P.; Rev. C. R. Lighton, Bart.; Lieut.-Col. Sir CouttsLindsay; Captain Sir G. N. Brooke Middelton; Sir Edmund Prideaux; SirGeorge Ramsey; Sir John S. Richardson; Sir George S. Robinson; Sir JohnS. Robinson; Sir J. A. Stewart; Sir W. D. Stewart; Sir John TysserTyrrell; Sir C. F. Lascelles Wraxall; Hon A. Duncombe, M. P.; Colonel,Right Hon. G. C. W. Forester, M. P.; Right Hon. J. Whiteside, M. P.;Hon. Percy S. Windham, M. P.; Lieut.-Col. T. Peers Williams, M. P.;Hon. W. Ashley; Major Hon. W. E. Cochrane; Hon. M. Portman; Hon S. P.Vereker; Richard Breminge, M. P.; W. H. Gregory, M. P.; JudgeHalliburton, M. P.; John Hardy, M. P.; Beresford A. J. B. Hope, M. P.;J. T. Hopewood, M. P.; W. S. Lindsay, M. P.; Matthew Henry Marsh, M.P.; Francis Macdonough, M. P.; J. A. Roebuck, M. P.; WilliamScholefield, M. P.; William Vansittart, M. P.; Arthur Edwin Way, M. P.]
[(3) Three eminent British authorities may be quoted as to the mode in which England had governed Ireland.
—Mr. Lecky, in his history of England in the eighteenth century, in reviewing the condition of Ireland, says, in 1878: "It would be difficult in the whole compass of history to find another instance in which such various and such powerful agencies concurred to degrade the character and to blast the prosperity of a nation. That the greater part of them sprang directly from the corrupt and selfish Government of England is incontestable. No country ever exercised a more complete control over the destinies of another than did England over those of Ireland for three-quarters of a century after the Revolution. No serious resistance of any kind was ever attempted. The nation was as passive as clay in the hands of the potter, and it is a circumstance of peculiar aggravation that a large part of the legislation I have recounted was a distinct violation of a solemn treaty. The commercial legislation which ruined Irish industry, the confiscation of Irish land, which disorganized the whole social condition of the country, the scandalous misapplication of patronage, which at once demoralized and impoverished the nation, were all directly due to the English Government and the English Parliament."
—Mr. Macaulay, in a speech in the House of Commons on the state of Ireland, in Feb., 1844, said: "My first proposition, sir, will scarcely be disputed. Both sides of the House are fully agreed in thinking that the condition of Ireland may well excite great anxiety and apprehension. That island, in extent about one-fourth of the United Kingdom, in population more than one-fourth, superior probably in natural fertility to any area of equal size in Europe, possessed of natural facilities for trade such as can nowhere else be found in an equal extent of coast, an inexhaustible nursery of gallant soldiers, a country far more important to the prosperity, the strength, the dignity of this great empire than all our distant dependencies together, than the Canadas and the West Indies added to Southern Africa, to Australasia, to Ceylon, and to the vast dominions of the Moguls,—that island, sir, is acknowledged by all to be so ill affected and so turbulent that it must, in any estimate of your power, be not added, but deducted. You admit that you govern that island, not as you govern England and Scotland, but as you govern your new conquests in Scinde; not by means of the respect which the people feel for the laws, but by means of bayonets, of artillery, or entrenched camps."
—Edmund Burke, writing to Sir Hercules Langrishe, in 1792, said: "The original scheme was never deviated from for a single hour. Unheard-of confiscations were made in the Northern parts, upon grounds of plots and conspiracies never proved upon their supposed authors. The war of chicane succeeded to the war of arms and of hostile statutes; and a regular series of operations were carried on, particularly from Chichester's time, in the ordinary courts of justice and by special commissions and inquisitions: First under pretense of tenures, and then of titles in the Crown, for the purpose of the total extirpation of the interests of the natives in their own soil, until the species of subtle ravage kindled the flames of that rebellion which broke out in 1641. By the issue of that war, by the turn which the Earl of Clarendon gave to things at the Restoration, and by the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691, the ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure too of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished."]
[(4) The following is the language of President Grant in his message:—
"Toward the close of the last Administration a convention was signed at London for the settlement of all outstanding claims between Great Britain and the United States, which failed to receive the advice and consent of the Senate to its ratification. The time and the circumstances attending the negotiation of that treaty were unfavorable to its acceptance by the people of the United States, and its provisions were wholly inadequate for the settlement of the grave wrongs that had been sustained by this Government as well as by its citizens.
"The injuries resulting to the United States by reason of the course adopted by Great Britain during our late civil war in the increased rates of insurance; in the diminution of exports and imports, and other obstruction to domestic industry and production; in its effect upon the foreign commerce of the country; in the decrease and transfer to Great Britain of our commercial marine; in the prolongation of the war and the increased cost, both in treasure and in lives, of its suppression, could not be adjusted and satisfied as ordinary commercial claims, which continually arise between commercial nations. And yet the convention treated them simply as such ordinary claims, from which they differ more widely in the gravity of their character than in the magnitude of their amount, great even as is that difference. Not a word was found in the treaty, and not an inference could be drawn from it, to remove the sense of the unfriendliness of the course of Great Britain in our struggle for existence, which has so deeply and universally impressed itself upon the people of this country.
"Believing that a convention thus misconceived in its scope and inadequate in its provisions would not have produced the hearty, cordial settlement of pending questions, which alone is consistent with the relations which I desire to have firmly established between the United States and Great Britain, I regarded the action of the Senate in rejecting the treaty to have been wisely taken in the interest of peace, and as a necessary step in the direction of a perfect and cordial friendship between the two countries. A sensitive people conscious of their power are more at ease under a great wrong wholly unatoned than under the restraint of a settlement which satisfies neither their ideas of justice nor their grave sense of the grievance they have sustained."]
[(5) The Commissioners on behalf of Great Britain were the Earl de Grey and Ripon, President of the Queen's Counsel; Sir Stafford Northcote, late Chancellor of the Exchequer; Sir Edward Thornton, British Minister at Washington; Sir John Macdonald, Premier of the Dominion of Canada; and Montague Bernard, Professor of International Law in the university of Oxford. On the part of the United States the Commissioners were Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State; Robert C. Schenck, who had just been appointed Minister to Great Britain; Samuel Nelson, Justice of the Supreme Court; E. Rockwood Hoar, late Attorney-General; and George H. Williams, late senator of the United States from Oregon.—The Secretaries were Lord Tenterden, under secretary of the British Foreign Office, and J. C. Bancroft Davis, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States.]
[(6) The following are the three rules agreed upon:—
"A neutral Government is bound—
"First, to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming, or equipping, within its jurisdiction, of any vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or to carry on war against a power with which it is at peace; and also to use like diligence to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially adapted, in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction, to warlike use.
"Secondly, not to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports of waters as the base of naval operations against the other, or for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms, or the recruitment of men.
"Thirdly, to exercise due diligence in its own ports and waters, and, as to all persons within its jurisdiction, to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligations and duties."]
[(7) The Commission that made these labored and accurate awards was composed as follows:—
Right Hon. Russell Gurney, M. P., was the English Commissioner; Hon. James S. Fraser of Indiana was Commissioner for the United States; Count Louis Corti (Minister from Italy to the United States) was selected as third Commissioner. Hon. Robert S. Hale, a learned member of the bar of New York, and distinguished as a representative in Congress, was appointed agent of the United States; and Mr. Henry Howard, one of the British secretaries of Legation at Washington, and most favorably known to the people of the Capital, was agent of Her Majesty's Government.]
[(8) The arbitrators who met at Geneva were as follows:—
Great Britain appointed Sir Alexander Cockburn; the United States appointed Mr. Charles Francis Adams; the King of Italy named Count Frederick Sclopia; the President of the Swiss Confederation named Mr. Jacob Stæmpfli; the Emperor of Brazil named the Baron d'Itajubá. Mr. J. C. Bancroft Davis was appointed Agent of the United States; and Lord Tenterden was the Agent of Great Britain.]
The opening of the Forty-second Congress, on the 4th of March, 1871, was disfigured by an act of grave injustice committed by the Senate of the United States. Charles Sumner was deposed from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations,—a position he had held continuously since the Republican party gained control of the Senate. The cause of his displacement may be found in the angry contentions to which the scheme of annexing San Domingo gave rise. Mr. Sumner's opposition to that project was intense, and his words carried with them what was construed as a personal affront to the President of the United States,—though never so intended by the Massachusetts senator. When the committees were announced from the Republican caucus on the 10th of March, 1871, by Mr. Howe of Wisconsin, Mr. Cameron of Pennsylvania appeared as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations and Mr. Sumner was assigned to the chairmanship of a new committee,—Privileges and Elections,—created for the exigency.(1)
The removal of Mr. Sumner from his place had been determined in a caucus of Republican senators, and never was the power of the caucus more wrongfully applied. Many senators were compelled, from their sense of obedience to the decision of the majority, to commit an act against their conceptions of right, against what they believed to be justice to a political associate, against what they believed to be sound public policy, against what they believed to be the interest of the Republican party. The caucus is a convention in party organization to determine the course to be pursued in matters of expediency which do not involve questions of moral obligation or personal justice. Rightfully employed, the caucus in not only useful but necessary in the conduct and government of party interests. Wrongfully applied, it is a weakness, an offense, a stumbling-block in the way of party prosperity.
Mr. Sumner's deposition from the place he had so long honored was not accomplished, however, without protest and contest. Mr. Schurz made an inquiry of Mr. Howe as to the grounds upon which the senator was to be deposed; and the answer was that "the personal relations between the senator from Massachusetts and the President of the United States and the head of the State Department are such as preclude all social intercourse between them." "In brief," said Mr. Howe, "I may say that the information communicated to us was that the senator from Massachusetts refused to hold personal intercourse with the Secretary of State."
—Mr. Schurz, sitting near Mr. Sumner, immediately answered for that senator that "he had not refused to enter into any official relations, either with the President of the United States or with the Secretary of State; and that upon inquiry being made of him, Mr. Sumner had answered that he would receive Mr. Fish as an old friend, and would not only be willing but would be glad to transact such matters and to discuss such questions as might come up for consideration." And Mr. Sumner added: "In his own house."
—Mr. Wilson, the colleague of Mr. Sumner, spoke with great earnestness against the wrong contemplated by the act: "Sir," said he, "we saw Stephen A. Douglas, on this floor, at the bidding of Mr. Buchanan's administration, in obedience to the demands of the slave-holding leaders and the all-conquering slave power, put down, disrated, from his committee. We saw seeds then sown that blossomed and bore bitter fruit at Charleston in 1860. Now we propose to try a similar experiment. I hope and trust in God that we shall not witness similar results. I love justice and fair play, and I think I know enough of the American people to know that ninety-nine hundredths of the men who elected this administration in 1868 will disapprove this act." Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Logan and Mr. Tipton were the only Republican senators who joined with Mr. Wilson in openly deprecating the decree of the party caucus.
—Mr. Edmunds, who was one of the active promoters of Mr. Sumner's deposition, declared that the question was "whether the Senate of the United States and the Republican party are quite ready to sacrifice their sense of duty to the whims of one single man, whether he comes from New England, or from Missouri, or from Illinois, or from anywhere else." He described the transaction as a business affair of changing a member from one committee to another for the convenience of the Senate, and said: "When I hear my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] and the senator from Missouri [Mr. Schurz] making these displays about a mere matter of ordinary convenience, it reminds me of the nursery story of the children who thought the sky was going to fall, and it turned out in the end that it was only a rose-leaf that had fallen from a bush to the ground."
—Senator Sherman defended the right of the caucus to make the decision. "Whenever that decision is made known," said he, "every one, however high may be his position, however great his services, is bound by the common courtesies which prevail in these political bodies to yield at once. . . . I feel it my duty to make this explanation of the vote I shall give. I think I am bound by the decision made after full debate on this mere personal point, involving only the question whether the honorable senator from Massachusetts shall occupy the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations or the chairmanship of the Committee on Privileges and Elections."
Other incidents connected with the removal tended to give it the air of discourtesy to Mr. Sumner. One feature of it was especially marked and painful. Mr. Sumner's acquaintance in Europe, certainly in England, was larger than that of any other member of the Senate. His speech on theAlabamaclaims was the first utterance on the subject which had arrested the attention of England, and now, as if in rebuke of his patriotic position, the Queen's High Commissioners directly after their arrival in Washington were called to witness a public indignity to Mr. Sumner. The action of the Senate was, in effect, notice to the whole world that Mr. Sumner was to have no further connection with a great international question to which he had given more attention than any other person connected with the Government.
Mr. Sumner declined the service to which he was assigned, and from that time forward to the day of his death he had no rank as chairman, no place upon a committee of the Senate, no committee-room for his use, no clerk assigned to him for the needed discharge of his public duties. When Mr. Sumner entered the Senate twenty years before, the pro-slavery leaders who then controlled it had determined at one time in their caucus to exclude him from all committee service on account of his offensive opinions in regard to slavery, but upon sober second thought they concluded that a persecution of that kind would add to Mr. Sumner's strength rather than detract from it. He was therefore given the ordinary assignment of a new member by the Southern men in control and was thence regularly advanced until he became a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, under the chairmanship of James M. Mason, with Douglas and Slidell as fellow-members.
For his fidelity to principle and his boldness in asserting the truth at an earlier day Mr. Sumner was struck down in the Senate chamber by a weapon in the hands of a political foe. It was impossible to anticipate that fifteen years later he would be even more cruelly struck down in the Senate by the members of the party he had done so much to establish. The cruelty was greater in the latter case, as the anguish of spirit is greater than suffering of body. In both instances Mr. Sumner's bearing was distinguished by dignity and magnanimity. He gave utterance to no complaints, and silently submitted to the unjustifiable wrong of which he was a victim. That nothing might be lacking in the extraordinary character of the final scene of his deposition, the Democratic senators recorded themselves against the consummation of the injustice. They had no co-operation from the Republicans. The caucus dictation was so strong that discontented Republicans merely refrained from voting.
The personal changes in the Senate, under the new elections, were less numerous than usual. General Logan took the place of Richard Yates from Illinois, having been promoted from the House, where his service since the war had been efficient and distinguished.—Matt W. Ransom, a Confederate soldier who had held high command in General Lee's army, took the place of Joseph C. Abbott of North Carolina. Mr. Ransom had been well educated at the University of Chapel Hill, was a lawyer by profession, had been Attorney-General of his State, and had served several years in this Legislature. Severe service in the field during the four years of the war had somewhat impaired his health, but his personal bearing and the general moderation of his views rapidly won for him many friends in both political parties.
—General Frank P. Blair, jun., entered as senator from Missouri a few weeks preceding the 4th of March, filling the place made vacant by the resignation of Senator Drake, who was appointed to the Bench of the Court of Claims. General Blair's political career had been somewhat checkered and changeful. Originally a Democrat of the Van Buren type, he had helped to organize the Republican party after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He remained a Republican until the defection of Andrew Johnson, when he joined the Democrats, and became so vituperatively hostile that the Senate in 1866 successively rejected his nomination for Collector of Internal Revenue in the St. Louis district, and for Minister to Austria. He was a good soldier, rose to the rank of Major-General, and secured the commendation of General Grant, which was far more than abrevetfrom the War Department. His defeat for the Vice-Presidency had, if possible, increased his antagonism to the Republican party, and he now came to the Senate as much embittered against his late associates as he had been against the Democrats ten years before. He was withal a generous-minded man of strong parts, but the career for which nature fitted him was irreparably injured by the unsteadiness of his political course.
—Henry G. Davis, a native of Maryland, entered as the first Democratic senator from West Virginia. His personal popularity was a large factor in the contest against the Republicans of his State, and he was naturally rewarded by his party as its most influential leader. Mr. Davis had honorably wrought his own way to high station, and had been all his life in active affairs. As a farmer, a railroad man, a lumberman, an operator in coal, a banker, he had been uniformly successful. He came to the Senate with that kind of practical knowledge which schooled him to care and usefulness as a legislator. He steadily grew in the esteem and confidence of both sides of the Senate, and when his party attained the majority he was entrusted with the responsible duty of the chairmanship of the Committee on Appropriations. No more painstaking or trustworthy man ever held the place. While firmly adhering to his party, he was at all times courteous, and in the business of the Senate or in social intercourse never obtruded partisan views. He was re-elected without effort, but early gave notice that at the end of his second term he would retire from active political life.
—Powell Clayton, who succeeded Alexander McDonald as senator from Arkansas, was a native of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, a member of the well-known Clayton family long settled in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. He was educated at a military school in Pennsylvania and trained as a civil engineer. He was engaged in that profession in Kansas in 1860-61, and upon the outbreak of the war immediately enlisted in the Union Army. He was rapidly promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General, and made an admirable record for efficiency and bravery. When the war ended he was commanding a district in Arkansas. He remained there as a citizen of the State and was active and influential during the period of reconstruction. In 1868 he was elected Governor, and at the close of his term was chosen United States senator. He is a man of character,—quiet and undemonstrative in manner, but with extraordinary qualities of firmness and endurance.
The House of Representatives was organized without delay or obstruction. Mr. Blaine was re-elected Speaker,—receiving 126 votes to 92 cast for George W. Morgan of Ohio, who had been nominated as the Democratic candidate. The oath of office was administered to the Speaker by Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts, who by Mr. Washburne's retirement had become the member of longest continuous service. The vote of the opposing candidates showed that in the elections for this Congress the Democrats had made an obvious gain in the country at large. The Republicans for the first time since 1861 failed to command two-thirds of the House,—a circumstance of much less importance when Congress is in harmony with the Executive than when, in conflict with him, the necessity arises for passing bills over his veto. But while the majority was not large, the House received valuable accessions among the new members.
—Joseph R. Hawley, who now entered the House, was born in North Carolina of Connecticut parents. He was educated in the North and began the practice of law at Hartford in 1850. Gifted with a ready pen, he soon adopted the editorial profession, and was conducting a Republican journal in 1861 when the war broke out. He enlisted the day after Sumter was fired upon, and remained in the service until the rebel armies surrendered, when he returned to his home and became editor of theHartford Courant, with which his name has been conspicuously identified for many years. His military record was faultless, as might well be inferred from the fact that he began as a private and ended with thebrevetof Major-General. He at once entered upon a political career, which in a State so closely divided as Connecticut involves labor and persistence. His two contests for Governor in 1866 and 1867, with James E. English as his opponent, enlisted wide-spread interest. The men were both popular; English had maintained an honorable reputation as a War Democrat at home, and had voted in Congress for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Both could therefore appeal to the Union sentiment then so pronounced among the people. In the election of 1866 Hawley was victorious by a few hundred; in the election of 1867 English was victorious by a few hundred,—in a total poll each year of about 90,000 votes. In Congress General Hawley at once took active part in the proceedings and debates. A forcible speaker, with quick perception and marked industry, he had all the requisite for success in a Parliamentary body.
—Ellis H. Roberts took his seat as a Republican representative from the Utica district, New York, of which he is a native. Immediately after his graduation at Yale he became the editor of theUtica Morning Herald,—a position he has ever since held. The strength of Mr. Roberts, his intellectual resources, the variety and extent of his knowledge, the elegance and purity of his style, may be found in his editorial columns. No test of a man's power is more severe than the demand made by a daily newspaper. Without the opportunity for elaborate investigation of each subject as it arises, he must have a mind well stored with knowledge; without time for leisurely composition, he must possess the power of writing off-hand with force and precision. Tried by these requirements, Mr. Roberts has for a third of a century exhibited a high order of ability, with a constantly enlarging sphere of knowledge, a constantly growing power of logical statement. He entered Congress, therefore, with great advantages and resources. So well recognized were these, that the general opinion of his colleagues indicated him for the Ways and Means Committee, a position rarely assigned to any but an old member. Mr. Roberts took active and influential part in all the financial legislation, and soon acquired a strong hold upon the House. He always spoke clearly and forcibly, possessing at the same time the art and tact of speaking briefly. He was re-elected in 1872, but suffered defeat in the Republican reverse of 1874. If he had been sustained by the force of a strong Republican majority, he could not have failed to increase the distinction he gained in his brief service, and to become one of the recognized leaders of the House.
—William P. Frye took his seat from Maine. Though but thirty-nine years of age, he had for a considerable period been conspicuous in his State. He graduated at Bowdoin College at nineteen years of age (in 1850), and soon became professionally and politically active. From the first organization of the Republican party he supported its principles and its candidates with well-directed zeal. He served several terms in the Legislature and was one of the foremost figures in the House of Representatives in 1862, recognized as one of the ablest that ever assembled in Maine. He acquired a high reputation as an advocate and was thrice elected Attorney-General of the State. At the close of his service in that important office he was chosen to represent his district in Congress. His rank as a debater was soon established, and he exhibited a degree of care and industry in committee work not often found among representatives who so readily command the attention of the House.
—Charles Foster came from the north-western section of Ohio in which his father had been one of the pioneers and the founder of the town of Fostoria. He attracted more than the ordinary attention given to new members, from the fact that he had been able to carry a Democratic district, and, for a young man, to exert a large influence upon public opinion. He was distinguished by strong common sense, by a popular manner, by personal generosity, and by a quick instinct as to the expediency of political measures and the strength of political parties. These qualities at once gave him a position of consequence in the House superior to that held by many of the older members of established reputation. His subsequent career vindicated his early promise, and enabled him to lead the Republican party of Ohio to victory in more than one canvass which at the outset was surrounded with doubt and danger.
—Two of the most conspicuous and successful business men from the North-West appeared in this House. Charles B. Farwell, one of the leading merchants of Chicago, entered as a Republican; and Alexander Mitchell, prominent in railway and banking circles, came as a Democrat from Milwaukee. Mr. Farwell was a native of New York, and went to the West when a boy, with a fortune which consisted of a good education and habits of industry. When elected to Congress, he had long been regarded as one of the ablest and most successful merchants of Chicago. He was chosen over John Wentworth by a majority of more than five thousand.—Alexander Mitchell was a Scotchman by birth, with all the qualities of his race,—acute, industrious, wary and upright. He had taken a leading position in the financial affairs of the North-West, and maintained it with ability, being rated for years as a man of great wealth honestly acquired.
—Jeremiah H. Wilson of Indiana entered the House with the reputation of being a strong lawyer—a reputation established by his practice at the bar and his service on the bench.—H. Boardman Smith of the Elmira district, New York, was afterwards well known on the Supreme Bench of his State.—Jeremiah Rusk of Wisconsin came with a good war record, and subsequently became Governor of his State.—Mark H. Dunnell, from Minnesota, was a native of Maine, had been a member of each branch of the Maine Legislature, and for several years was Superintendent of Public Instruction.—John T. Averill was also a native of Maine. He had won the rank of Brigadier-General in the war, and had afterwards become extensively engaged in manufacturing in Minnesota.—James Monroe from the Oberlin district, Ohio, was a man of cultivation and of high character. He had served for several years in the Legislature of his State, and had been Consul-General at Rio Janiero under Mr. Lincoln's Administration.—Isaac C. Parker, a Republican from Missouri, made so good a reputation in the House that he was appointed to the United States District bench.—Walter L. Sessions, an active politician, entered from the Chautauqua district of New York.—Alfred C. Harmer, well known in Philadelphia, entered from one of the districts of that city.—John Hancock, a man of ability and character, entered from Texas.—Gerry W. Hamilton, with a fine legal reputation, came from Wisconsin.—Henry Waldron, who had served some years before, returned from Michigan.
The political disabilities imposed by the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution affected large classes in the Southern States. When the Amendment was under discussion in Congress, the total number affected was estimated at fourteen thousand, but subsequently it was ascertained to be much greater. It included not only those who had been members of Congress, or held any office under the United States, but all those who had been Executive or Judicial officers or members of the Legislatures in the revolted States. The Proclamation, making its ratification known to the people, was issued by Secretary Seward on the twentieth day of July, 1868; but in advance of this formal announcement Congress (then in session) began to relieve the persons affected. The first act was for the benefit of Roderick R. Butler of Tennessee, representative-elect to the Fortieth Congress. It was approved on the 19th of June (1868), and permission was given him to take a modified oath. On the 25th of June amnesty was extended to about one thousand persons, and during the remainder of the Congress some five hundred more were relieved from political disability. In the Forty-first Congress the liberality of the majority did not grow less; and during the two years thirty-three hundred participators in the rebellion—among them some of the most prominent and influential—were restored to the full privileges of citizenship; the rule being, in fact, that every one who asked for it, either through himself of his friends, was freely granted remission of penalty.
At the opening of the Forty-second Congress it was evident that the practice of removing the disabilities of individuals would not find favor as in the two preceding Congresses. There was a disposition rather to classify and reserve for further consideration the really offending men and give general amnesty to all others. To this end, Mr. Hale of Maine, on the 10th of April, 1871, moved to suspend the rules in order that a bill might be passed removing legal and political disabilities from all persons who had participated in the rebellion, except the following classes:first, members of the Congress of the United States who withdrew therefrom and aided the rebellion;second, officers of the Army and Navy, who, being above the age of twenty-one years, left the service and aided the rebellion;third, members of State Conventions who voted for pretended ordinances of secession. It was further provided that before receiving the benefit of this Act each person should take an oath of loyalty before the Clerk of a United States Court or before a United States Commissioner. Debate was not allowed and the bill was passed by more than the requisite two-thirds—ayes134,noes46.
When the Bill came before the Senate, Mr. Robertson of South Carolina attempted to put it on its passage, but objection being made it was referred under the rule, and thereby postponed for the session. With this result the pressure for individual relief of the disabled persons became so great, that at the next session of Congress a bill was prepared and passed in the House, containing some seventeen thousand names, to which the Senate proposed to add some three thousand. But the effect of this was still further to impress upon Congress the necessity of some generalization of the process of relief. The impossibility of examining into the merits of individuals by tens of thousands, and of establishing the quality and degree of their offenses, was so obvious that representatives on both sides of the House demanded an Act of general amnesty, excepting therefrom only the few classes whose names would lead to discussion and possibly to the defeat of the beneficent measure.
General Butler accordingly reported from the Judiciary Committee, on the 13th of May, 1872, a bill removing the disabilities "from all persons whomsoever, except senators and representatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, officers in the Judicial, Military and Naval service of the United States, heads of Departments, and foreign Ministers of the United States." This Act of amnesty, which left so few under disabilities (not exceeding seven hundred and fifty in all), would have been completed long before, but for the unwillingness of the Democratic party to combine with it a measure, originated and earnestly advocated by Mr. Sumner, to broaden the civil rights of the colored man, to abolish discrimination against him as enforced by hotels, railroad companies, places of public amusement, and in short, in every capacity where he was rendered unequal in privilege to the white man. But the Democratic leaders were not willing to accept amnesty for their political friends in the South, if at the same time they must take with it the liberation of the colored man from odious personal discriminations.
The Democrats were now to witness an exhibition of magnanimity in the colored representatives which had not been shown towards them. When the Amnesty Bill came before the House for consideration, Mr. Rainey of South Carolina, speaking for the colored race whom he represented, said: "It is not the disposition of my constituents that these disabilities should longer be retained. We are desirous of being magnanimous: it may be that we are so to a fault. Nevertheless we have open and frank hearts towards those who were our former oppressors and taskmasters. We foster no enmity now, and we desire to foster none, for their acts in the past to us or to the Government we love so well. But while we are willing to accord them their enfranchisement and here to-day give our votes that they may be amnestied, while we declare our hearts open and free from any vindictive feelings towards them, we would say to those gentlemen on the other side that there is another class of citizens in the country, who have certain rights and immunities which they would like you, sirs, to remember and respect. . . . We invoke you, gentlemen, to show the same kindly feeling towards us, a race long oppressed, and in demonstration of this humane and just feeling, I implore you, give support to the Civil-rights Bill, which we have been asking at your hands, lo! these many days."
There was no disposition, as General Butler explained, to unite the Civil-rights Bill with the Amnesty Bill, because the former could be passed by a majority, while the latter required two-thirds. With General Butler and the colored representatives speaking for the most radical sentiment of the House, and the Democrats eager for the bill if it could be disentangled from all connection with other measures, complete unanimity was reached, and the bill was enacted without even a division being demanded.
When the measure reached the Senate it was governed by an understanding that without being united in the same Act it should keep even pace with the Civil-rights Bill, and that while the Southern white man was to be relieved of his political disabilities the Southern black man should be endowed with his personal rights. On the 21st of May, therefore, the Civil-rights Bill was taken up for consideration in advance of the Amnesty Bill. In the temporary absence of Mr. Sumner from the Senate chamber, the equality recognized as to public schools and jury service was struck out, and in that form the bill was passed. The Amnesty Bill was immediately taken up; while it was pending Mr. Sumner returned and warmly denounced the fundamental change that had been made in the Civil-rights Bill. In consequence of what he considered a breach of faith on the question, he voted against the passage of the Amnesty Bill, Senator Nye of Nevada being the only one who united with him in the negative vote. Mr. Sumner's denunciations of the emasculated Civil-rights Bill were extremely severe; but he was pertinently reminded by Senator Anthony of Rhode Island that the bill was all that could be obtained in the Senate at this session, and perhaps more than could be enacted into law. The senator from Rhode Island had correctly estimated the probably action of the House, for although on three different occasions attempts were made to pass the bill under a suspension of the rules, the Democratic members, who numbered more than one-third of the House, voted solidly in the negative, and thus defeated the measure.
The colored representatives, who had been slaves, were willing to release their late masters from every form of disability, but the immediate friends of the masters were unwilling to extend the civil rights of the colored man. So far as chivalry, magnanimity, charity, Christian kindness, were involved, the colored men appeared at an advantage. Perhaps it is not surprising that lingering prejudices and the sudden change of situation should have restrained Southern white men from granting these privileges, but it must always be mentioned to the credit of the colored man that he gave his vote for amnesty to his former master when his demand for delay would have obstructed the passage of the measure.
In the stubborn opposition maintained by the Democratic party to the admission of colored men to the rights of citizenship, the closing argument of violent harangues was usually in the form of a question, "Do you want to see them in Congress?"—to which the natural and logical answer was that the right of the colored man to sit in Congress does not depend in the least upon the desire or the prejudice of other States and other districts. It is solely a matter within the judgment of the State or district which in a fair vote and honest election may choose to send him. The revolution in favor of human rights, promoted and directed by the Republican party, swept onward: the colored man, freed from slavery, attained the right of suffrage, and in due season was sent to Congress. Did harm result from it? Nay, was it not the needed demonstration of the freedom and justice of a republican government? If it be viewed simply as an experiment, it was triumphantly successful. The colored men who took seats in both Senate and House did not appear ignorant or helpless. They were as a rule studious, earnest, ambitious men, whose public conduct—as illustrated by Mr. Revels and Mr. Bruce in the Senate, and by Mr. Rapier, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Rainey in the House—would be honorable to any race. Coals of fire were heaped on the heads of all their enemies when the colored men in Congress heartily joined in removing the disabilities of those who had before been their oppressors, and who, with deep regret be it said, have continued to treat them with injustice and ignominy.
[(1) Objection was not interposed against Mr. Cameron personally. By seniority he was entitled to the place in the event of a vacancy. The controversy related solely to the refusal to give Mr. Sumner his old position.]
The Presidential canvass of 1872 was anomalous in its character. Never before or since has a great party adopted as its candidate a conspicuous public man, who was not merely outside its own ranks, but who, in the thick of every political battle for a third of a century, had been one of its most relentless and implacable foes. In the shifting scenes of our varied partisan contests, the demands of supposed expediency had often produced curious results. Sometimes the natural leaders of parties had been set aside; men without experience and without attainments had been brought forward; the settled currents of years had been suddenly changed by the eddy and whirl of the moment; but never before had any eccentricity of political caprice gone so far as to suggest the bitterest antagonist of a party for its anointed chief. It was the irony of logic, and yet it came to pass by the progress of events which were irresistibly logical.
The course of affairs had been threatening a formidable division in the Republican party. It was in some degree a difference of policy, but more largely a clashing of personal interests and ambitions. The Liberal Republican movement, as the effort of dissatisfied partisans was termed, had its nominal origin, though not its exciting cause, in the State of Missouri in 1870. Missouri had presented the complications and conflicts which embarrassed all the Border States. The State had not seceded, but tens of thousands of her people had joined the rebel ranks. To prevent them from sharing in the government while fighting to overthrow it, these allies of the Rebellion had by an amendment to the State constitution been disqualified from exercising the rights of citizenship. The demand was now made that these disabilities imposed during the war should be removed. The Republicans, holding control of the Legislature, divided upon this question. The minority, calling themselves Liberals, under the leadership of Benjamin Gratz Brown and Carl Schurz, combined with the Democrats, and passed amendments which removed the disqualifications. The same combination, as a part of the same movement, elected Brown governor. An alliance, offensive and defensive, between Brown and General Frank Blair, as the chiefs of the Liberal and Democratic wings, cemented the coalition, and gave Missouri over to Democratic control.
The question which divided Missouri was not presented in the same form elsewhere. The disabilities against which the Liberals protested were local, and were ordained in the State constitution. They were wholly under State regulations. No such issue presented itself in the National arena. The laws of the nation imposed no disabilities upon any class of voters, and even the disqualification for office, which rested upon those who had deserted high public trust to join in the Rebellion, could be a vote of Congress be removed. Nevertheless, the creed of the Missouri Liberals, though little applicable outside their own borders, found an echo far beyond. Indeed, it was itself the echo of earlier demands. Mr. Greeley characterized the Republican allies of the Democrats in Missouri as bolters, but he had long before sounded his trumpet cry of "universal amnesty and impartial suffrage." With a political philosophy which is full of interest and suggestion in view of his own impending experiment, he had in 1868 advised the Democrats, if they did not nominate Mr. Pendleton on an extreme Democratic platform, to go to the other extreme and take Chief Justice Chase on a platform of amnesty and suffrage. He did not think they could succeed by any such manoeuvre; but he believed it would commit Democracy to a new departure, and be a long stride in the direction of loyalty and good government. If other leaders did not share his faith, not a few of them accepted his creed. Mr. Greeley's zealous and powerful advocacy had impressed it upon many minds as the true corner-stone of Reconstruction.
But this was obviously not a sufficient cause for division in the Republican ranks. Whatever special significance it might have possessed at an earlier period, the course of events had deprived it of its distinctive force. It was now a matter of sentiment rather than of practical efficacy. The readiness of Congress in responding to every application for the removal of disabilities was itself a generous amnesty. The Fifteenth Amendment had irrevocably established the principle of equal suffrage. With this practical advance, the demand of Liberalism did not leave room for any serious difference. More potent causes were at work. The administration of President Grant in some of its public measures had furnished pretexts, and in some of its political dispensations had supplied reasons, for discontent in various Republican quarters. The pretexts were loudly emphasized: the reasons, more powerful in their effect, were less plainly and directly proclaimed. The former related to questions of public policy and to differences of opinion which would hardly have been irreconcilable: the latter sprang from personal disappointments and involved the rivalry of personal interests, which throughout history have been the pregnant source of the bitterest partisan contention.
The Liberals vigorously denounced what they characterized as the military rule of General Grant. They criticised and condemned the personal phases of the Administration:—they repeated the Democratic charge that it was grasping undue power; they decried the channels through which its influence was felt in the South; they complained that its patronage was appropriated by leaders inimical to themselves; they saw a strong organization growing up, with its centre in the Senate and combining the great States, from which they were somewhat offensively excluded. The deposition of Senator Sumner from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations had estranged him and alienated his friends.
In the State of New York the personal currents were especially marked. Governor Fenton had, during his two terms, from 1865 to 1869, acquired the political leadership, and held it until Mr. Conkling's rising power had created a strong rivalry. The struggle of these antagonistic interests appeared in the State Convention of 1870, when Mr. Greeley was defeated for governor, and Stewart L. Woodford was nominated. In 1871 it appeared again in still more decisive form. Through the contention of these opposing wings, two general committees and two organizations of the party had been created in the city of New York, each claiming the seal of regularity, and each sending a full delegation to the State Convention. One represented the friends of Mr. Greeley and Mr. Fenton: the other represented the friends of Mr. Conkling. The importance and significance of the contest were fully recognized. It was a decisive trial of strength between two divisions. Mr. Fenton and Mr. Conkling, colleagues in the Senate, were both present upon the scene of battle. Mr. Fenton had skill and experience in political management: Mr. Conkling was bold and aggressive in leadership. Mr. Fenton guided his partisans from the council chamber through ready lieutenants: Mr. Conkling was upon the floor of the Convention and took command in person. After several persuasive appeals, the Convention was about to compromise the difficulty and admit both delegations with an equal voice and vote, when Mr. Conkling took the floor and by a powerful speech succeeded in changing its purpose. Upon his resolute call the Fenton-Greeley delegation was excluded, and his own friends were left in full control of the Convention and of the party organization.
Under ordinary circumstances such a schism would have seemed altogether unfortunate. At this juncture it looked peculiarly bold and hazardous, for the "Tweed Ring" had complete control of New York; and apparently the only hope, and that a feeble one, of rescuing the city and State from its despotic and unscrupulous thraldom was in a united Republican party. But the "Tweed Ring," in the very height of its arrogant and defiant power, was on the eve of utter overthrow and annihilation. The opportune exposure and conclusive proof of its colossal frauds and robberies came just then. The effect of the startling revelation was such that the most absolute political oligarchy ever organized in this country crumbled to dust in a moment, and the Republicans carried New York for the first time since 1866.
The unexpected success of 1871 crowning the triumph in the State Convention fully confirmed the power of Mr. Conkling as the leader of the party in New York. Mr. Greeley and his followers, already opposed to the National Administration, now gave way to a still more unrestrained hostility. All the antipathy which they felt for their antagonists in the State was transferred to the President. They ascribed their defeat to the free exercise of the Federal power; and the indictment, which they had long been framing, was made more severe from their renewed personal disappointment. In this temper and position they were not alone. The discontent with the National Administration was stimulated and increased by powerful journals like theNew-York Tribune, theChicago Tribune, and theCincinnati Commercial.
The drift of events placed the protesting Republicans in an embarrassing situation. The renomination of General Grant was seen to be inevitable; and they were left to determine whether they would remain in the party and acquiesce in what they were unable to prevent, or whether they would try from the outside the opposition which was impotent from the inside. They were thus driven by events to extend into the National field the political experiment which had been successfully undertaken in the State of Missouri. The movement assumed apparently large proportions, and for a time wore a threatening look. On the surface it was more wide-spread than the Buffalo Free-soil revolt which defeated the Democratic party in 1848; but its development was different, and the conditions were wholly dissimilar. Now, as then, there was a curious blending of principle and of personal resentment, but the issue presented was less enkindling than the sentiment of resistance to the aggressions of slavery. The element of opposition in the impending schism was, therefore, not as strong at the decisive point as in the earlier outbreak.
The National Convention of the Liberal Republicans, which was the first public step in the fusion with the Democracy, was held at Cincinnati on the first day of May (1872), under a call emanating from the Liberal State Convention of Missouri. There were no organizations to send delegates, and it was necessarily called as a mass convention. The attendance was large, especially from the States immediately adjoining the place of meeting and from New York. It was clear that with an aggregate so large and numbers so disproportionate from the different States the disorganized and irresponsible mass must be resolved into some sort of representative convention, and those present from the several States were left to choose delegates in their own way. The New-York delegation included Judge Henry R. Selden, General John Cochrane, Theodore Tilton, William Dorsheimer (who two years later was elected Lieutenant-Governor on the Democratic ticket with Samuel J. Tilden), and Waldo Hutchins, who has since been a Democratic member of Congress.—David Dudley Field, though participating in the preliminary consultations, was excluded from the delegation through the influence of Mr. Greeley's friends, because of his free-trade attitude.